Amazing Spider-Man Augmented Reality App (Video)

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Rick Mathieson

Can he swing from a thread? Take a look overhead – with your mobile phone, that is.

Sure, Marvel’s “Avengers” did boffo box office over the weekend, and it already has its its own augmented reality app for use within Walmart.

But July 3′s big “Spider-Man” reboot is getting an even niftier little app that lets you see Peter Parker’s alter ego in action – and even snap and share photos from his web to yours (talk about bringing new meaning to the phrase “webslinger.”)

I still think “Mission Impossible’s” AR app is cooler – but this is still sure to please friendly neighborhood Spidey fans near you.

Rick Mathieson is the author of THE ON-DEMAND BRAND and BRANDING UNBOUND. Post special to Mozes Inc. (C) Rick Mathieson.

Marvel Previews Augmented Reality Comics (Video)

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Rick Mathieson

Why just read “Iron Man” when he can leap off the page and into augmented reality?

That’s the idea from Marvel, which offered a preview of AR-based comics at SXSW last week.

Great idea. But it’d have to offer a whole lot more than just a quick mobile or web cam-based AR-based visual of your favorite hero.

IMHO, it should be used to animate key frames from the story (or even better, the whole issue). Short of that, if they’re just going to be extras, why not experiences that make you part of the action, like the AR iPhone app promoting “Mission Impossible”?

Now that would bring new value to print-based comics versus their digital editions, at least for a time.

But what’s your view?

Are AR comics super? Or hardly worth the heroic effort to use them?

Heineken Personalized QR Code Stickers Become Ice Breakers At Music Festival (Video)

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Rick Mathieson

Hat’s off to Heineken.

We’re digging this this very cool initiative from Leo Burnett Warsaw for the Heineken Open’er Music Festival: A special system that enabled concertgoers to create customized QR code stickers that other attendees could then scan to spark up conversation.

It’s just one of the ways Heineken’s been using innovation (digital and otherwise) over the last year – from the Occasionally Perfect Billboard, to Starvision personalized club signage to augmented reality advertising.

In this particular effort, QR codes (or”U-Codes,” as they call them here) become social lubricants to make the concert-going experience more social and fun.

And isn’t that that great music is all about?